Texas: Everyone Here Probably Owns a Gun, Is Carrying One, or Is Thinking About It

Bryan Preston points out that in Texas gun laws are remarkable simple - just like they used to be across the US - as this excerpt from a TX gun laws FAQ demonstrates:

Q: How long is the waiting period to buy a Handgun / Shotgun / Rifle in Texas?

A: There is no waiting period for purchasing a firearm in the state of Texas.

Q: I just moved to Texas, do I have to register my firearms?

A: No, there is no state registration of firearms.

Q: I just inherited / bought a gun from someone in Texas, do I need to transfer the gun to my name?

A: No, there is no state registration of firearms, thus there is no requirement transfer the firearm in your name.

...

Q: Can I carry a firearm in my vehicle?

A: Yes. With the passage of the Motorist Protection Act you may now readily carry handguns, loaded and within reach, so long as you conceal the firearm. Long guns (rifles / shotguns) do not have to be concealed and may be loaded and within reach.

Q: Are machine guns / suppressors / short-barreled firearms, etc. legal in the state of Texas?

A: Yes. All NFA rules apply. See this FAQ for more info regarding Class III / Title II items.

Q: Are "assault weapons" banned in Texas?

A: No. Texas abides by Federal law which at this time has no restrictions on so-called "assault weapons" such as semi-auto AR15, FAL, G3 / HK91 rifles.

Q: Is there a limit on the number of rounds a magazine may hold?

A: No. The only limit on magazines in Texas is the number of rounds you are physically able to cram into the thing and/or carry and/or afford.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:01 PM | Comments (679)
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Oregon (4) and Kansas State (5). 8:30 EST. But enough about me.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:11 PM | Comments (175)
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Important. Profoundly stirring. Soulful. more...

Posted by: LauraW at 03:16 PM | Comments (138)
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I believe Andy covered this, but in case you missed it Taranto's writing about it now.

The story began with an alarming anecdote: An old man "approached a female neighbor on the street and shot her in the back of the head" last May. "What was equally shocking for some was the revelation that the mentally disturbed 77-year-old man had amassed a cache of weapons--including two unregistered handguns and a large amount of ammunition--without any neighbors knowing."

By way of explaining its rationale for providing the permit data, the paper quoted John Thompson, who directs something called Project SNUG at the Yonkers YMCA: "I would love to know if someone next to me had guns. It makes me safer to know so I can deal with that. I might not choose to live there."

The Journal News never got around to explaining how the commission of a violent crime with an unregistered gun could justify stigmatizing and invading the privacy of citizens--including many retired policemen, according to the report--who have complied with the law and obtained permits for their firearms. And if the public has a "right to know" when the fellow who lives next door has a gun permit, why doesn't the same right apply to those who live and work near the Journal News's offices?

This column does not begrudge the Journal News for exercising its Second Amendment right to armed self-defense. But doing so after attacking law-abiding citizens for doing exactly the same thing is the most stunning display of media hypocrisy we've seen since the "civility" frenzy of early 2011.

Those at the paper said they felt alarmed by the responses they were getting, which they considered threatening -- though none of them were actually threats.

But that's the whole point: What the paper did to lawful citizens was throw the spotlight of Internet Fame on to a group of people who'd done nothing to warrant it. The reason those people themselves did not like the Sudden Internet Spotlight is simple: Who knows what wackadoos will come crawling out of the wordwork to wreak some violence against you?

The paper didn't mind doing this to these people -- in fact, I think they intended it. They intended the lawful gun-license holders to feel intimidated, to feel as if their safety was compromised. That's how stalkers impose their wills on their targets-- the target is always aware that malicious intent lurks around them and may strike at any time.

And now the paper whines because that selfsame loss of the feeling of security, that same feeling that now a dozens of emotionally unstable people might commit random violence in order to vindicate some political point, is now felt by they themselves.

Are we supposed to feel sorry for them? Wasn't this the precise feeling of oppressive fear they intended their victims to have?

And isn't it something that to get a sense of security back they've hired guards armed with handguns to protect themselves.

Another example of the New Aristocracy asserting -- just as the old aristocracy did -- that only the noble class should be permitted the weaponry of the noble class.

I actually expect this to be an increasingly common tactic in our cowardly new world, this attempt to make people afraid by ginning up the possibly-violent interests of thousands of angry strangers. Just for kicks. Just because you can. Just for the hit-whoring. And just for the feeling losers derive from "fighting back" against their imagined oppressors via any means necessary.

Posted by: Ace at 02:47 PM | Comments (152)
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And you know who did? Why, Al Jazeera, of course.

very once in a while a tweet appears that's so silly, it must be a joke. Like this one from Glenn Beck: "Before Al-Jazeera bought Current TV, TheBlaze looked into buying it but we were rejected by progressive owners." Guess what? He's totally serious. The Wall Street Journal caught the detail in its coverage: "Glenn Beck's The Blaze approached Current about buying the channel last year, but was told that 'the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view,' according to a person familiar with the negotiations."

Also, as @benk84 told you ten hours ago, Al Gore tried to hurry up the sale so he could avoid the increased taxes beginning January 1st.

Lot of interesting stories the media has no interest in, eh? The media justifies its intense coverage of Republican sexual affairs on grounds that they evidence hypocrisy, and so are more important than the affair itself; but when Al Gore tries to avoid the higher tax rates he agitates for, it's a single sentence in dispatch.

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 PM | Comments (257)
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Streaming on Netflix now (and available on disc, I imagine) are a couple of French movies. They're parodies of James Bond films, but a little backstory:

Apparently this "OSS 117" character predates James Bond by four years -- and the "117" might be where Fleming got his own "007." (A commenter reminds me that "007" was taken from the nom de cipher of Elizabeth I's occultist adviser, John Dee.) The writers, a guy named Bruce, and then, when he died, his wife and son, churned out over 250 books about OSS 117. (There's a tradition in France of hiring ghost writers to continue popular series.) There were some serious films about "the James Bond of France" made in the 50s and 60s.

While these new movies, 2006's OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and 2009's OSS 117: Lost in Rio feature the same character and same basic situation (a French secret agent operating in the 50's and 60's), they are parodies of spy movies, especially James Bond films, and pretty hilarious -- even in French.

I'd say it's a French version of Austin Powers but that's not quite right-- people say Austin Powers was a parody of James Bond, but Austin Powers was such a singular mutant creation it's hard to see much of James Bond in him. And to the extent he's a parody, he's more a parody of the 60s era James Bond parodies Matt Helm, Derek Flint, and the Avengers. Stuff that only real spy geeks even remember.

These movies are actually closer to a real parody of James Bond, down to having Connery's exact suits and haircut and a funny actor who looks strangely like a goofy version of Sean Connery. The main actor was the lead in The Artist, where he played a silly, goofily mock-heroic version of Douglas Fairbanks, and here does the same sort of thing with his Bond pastiche.

The schtick in the movies is that the title spy is dumb -- of course. But he's also sexist, absurdly patriotic, and a ridiculous cultural chauvanist; he hands out pictures of the French President to Egyptians he meets and tells them the the picture depicts France's king and will bring them great luck. He also comments, with charming aplomb, on the backwardness of Islamic countries -- "What kind of stupid religion bans alcohol?" He also punches out a muzzein for waking him up with his caterwauling morning call to prayer.

The movies are pretty damn funny -- again, even in French; it's not the wordplay that's funny, just this guy's never-ending cocksure dimness -- but what's really surprising to an American viewer is how politically incorrect this all is. The French are, to put it in a nice way, not as hung up as we are about cultural sensitivity, and, to put in a not nice way, completely racist. Now, the movies are lampooning OSS 117's cringe-worthy cultural insensitivity, but along the way you get some of the most shocking racial humor I've seen since Blazing Saddles.

And I think the movies, especially the sequel, go even further than Blazing Saddles. The first one had some limits, but once that became a hit, the second one pushed everything to 11. Unfortunately, in the second one, he teams up with the Mossad... and his ideas about Jews are, like so much about him, extremely French. The second one really starts to push the envelope into areas where I thought they shouldn't go. Because I like the movies, I sure don't want to think they let themselves go further with the spy's anti-semitism than they did with his anti-Islamism simply because the filmmakers are, in fact, anti-semitic. I'd prefer to think that, as the Spy Who Shagged Me was just the first one again but going even further with the same basic joke, it's just a matter of the sequel going further than the original, and, alas, the sequel explores the infamous French attitude about Jews. And, cringing aside, it's pretty funny.

That warning aside, the movies are pretty damn funny and the character -- a good-natured but dim bumbler like Maxwell Smart but sexist, racist, anti-Semitic, colonialist, and homohobic (but homophobic while barely suppressing strong homosexual tendencies) is completely likable.

Oddly enough the movies take a lot of shots at France, too, and almost none at America. (The only real America-bashing happens in the second when OSS 117 meets his CIA friend, a foul-mouthed Felix Leiter parody who actually looks, when we first see him, a little like Jack Lord in Dr. No. And the only bashing is that this character is a boor and an idiot. But then, so is the French hero.)

Really an unexpected treat. I hope I haven't oversold it. Kind of a must-see for any James Bond fan. The director really gets the look of the early Bond films (especially Dr. No) just right. And the actor is just hilarious.

Posted by: Ace at 01:05 PM | Comments (192)
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From @benk84's link dump: the guy has a history of getting off very lightly for possession of heroin and stabbing a bartender. Because his dad is rich.

The media isn't covering this-- and let me note, the media isn't covering this, despite Newtown.

We learn in nearly every spasm of violence that the perpetrator was a Strange Young Man who had a record of antisocial behavior and an unsettling interest in instruments of death.

And yet, here we have a guy who previously served a year in jail for stabbing a bartender, discovered with a cache of explosives -- and the media, even post-Newtown, won't give this story any play, simply because it would reflect poorly on Occupy.

If the media is really as interested in stopping mass violence as it pretends -- rather than simply agitating for culture wars -- shouldn't they take an interest in Strange Young Men whose minds seem to fixate on weaponry and imagined enemies?

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (250)
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This strikes me as an exercise in pure contrarianism but I suppose it's worth noting.

Those who think that opposing any deal would have somehow created the conditions for Republicans to insist on reinstating all the Bush tax rates after they expired have a far higher opinion of the backbone of Republican leaders than I do. But thatÂ’s a prudential debate about how, as the minority party in Washington focused on keeping taxes and spending down, to minimize the harm of a uniquely bad set of circumstances. Maybe Republicans did that, maybe they could have done a little better, but they probably couldnÂ’t have done much better.

But the Democrats could have, and the story of their failure here has not yet gotten the notice it deserves. In the long run, when the dust has settled, I think that will be the real story of the fiscal cliff. For liberals, this was not a moment of danger to be minimized but by far their best opportunity in a generation for increasing tax rates (which is the only fiscal reform they seem to want) and for robbing Republicans of future leverage for spending and entitlement reforms. And it is likely the best one they will encounter for another generation. Many on the left have seemed convinced lately that the politics of taxes had changed dramatically in their favor, and that the opportunity presented by the cliff could result in the kind of surge in revenue that could put off the coming fiscal crunch for years (until, they seem to think, it will just magically go away at some point) and so could save our entitlement programs from the need for reform....

But that hasn’t happened here. This deal is projected to yield $620 billion in revenue over a decade — increasing projected federal revenue by about 1.7 percent over that time. And that’s about it. The Democrats have made the Bush tax rates permanent for 98 percent of the public, which Republicans couldn’t even do when they controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency. They did not get to pick and throw away the low-hanging fruit that could be used in future rate-reducing tax reform (in fact, they retained some “extenders” of tax credits and deductions that could better enable such reform, and the new and more honest CBO baseline that results from this deal eases the way for it), they did not get to claim that they have reformed Medicare without touching its structure, and they now have to move immediately into a debt ceiling fight. Right after a tax-only deal, and just as people start to notice higher payroll taxes, they’re not in a great position to demand more rate increases in that fight, or others to come.

If even under the conditions of the past month — with a very liberal president just re-elected, Republicans in disarray, public opinion on taxes seemingly friendlier to them than it has been in decades, and higher tax rates automatically taking effect — the Democrats can’t get more than a tiny pittance of revenue and no chips to use later, then their basic approach to fiscal issues just won’t work.

Apparently a Democratic priority was getting Republicans to sign on to sham Medicare reform -- "reform" which only consists of the government paying doctors and hospitals less, rather than changing it structurally. Yuval Levin suggests the Democrats wanted that to forestall genuine reform and also to get the Republicans to sign on to the Democrats' favorite sort of reform, which is to say, no reform at all.

Well, the Democrats didn't get that, but I'm not sure that was really the high priority Levin thinks it is.

Some suggest that the Democrats no longer have much leverage in the coming debates over the debt ceiling. They have less leverage, but that's mostly because they already got their top priority. And given that the Republicans surrendered on the debt ceiling last time, I don't see why they'd suddenly have the backbone for a fight now.

Posted by: Ace at 10:08 AM | Comments (277)
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Well, in an economy this robust, I suppose we can afford to lose some employment.

About a quarter of businesses surveyed by consulting firm Mercer donÂ’t offer health coverage to employees who work at least 30 hours a week. Half of them plan to make changes so fewer employees work that many hours. The health care law will particularly affect companies with 40 to 45 workers that plan to expand and hire. Many are holding off so they donÂ’t cross the 50-employee threshold, says Christine Ippolito, principal at Compass Workforce Solutions, a human resource consulting firm in Melville, N.Y. Ernie Canadeo, president of EGC Group, a Melville-based advertising and marketing agency with 45 employees, planned to add 10 next year but now says he may add fewer so heÂ’s not subject to the mandateÂ…Others already over the 50-employee threshold plan to add more part-time workers or cut the hours of full-timers, says Rob Wilson, head of Employco, a human resource outsourcing firm. Many, he says, will hire more temporary workers, whom they wonÂ’t have to cover.

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (449)
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Above The Post Update:
C-SPAN's running count has Boehner at 219.

Marsha Blackburn and Michele Backmann didn't vote in first go round but when they called the missing voters, they came to push him over the top. Because Truuuuu Conservative.

Original Post:
Going on right now.

It will take 17 Republicans to vote for someone other than Boehner to throw the election to a second round. It's not a whoever gets the most votes but an outright majority so there's no chance of Pelosi sneaking in.

So far there are 3 votes for other people and crazy Michele Bachmann didn't vote (does she think she might be an actual option?).

The other votes so far have gone to Raul Labrador of ID, Eric Cantor (he voted for Boehner) and Allen West.

Boehner's going to win.

Jim Cooper of TN just voted for Colin Powell.

There's a freak show quality to some parts of the GOP. I take that back, Cooper is a Democrat, so that won't help the anti-Boehner faction.

Cantor, McCarthy, Price and Ryan all voted for Boehner. The revolution...it never showed up.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:44 AM | Comments (606)
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